SLP Introduction to Community Health

Read the following: Healthy People in Healthy Communities, or A Strategy for Creating a Healthy Community: MAP-IT, so that you will understand the MAP-IT program before you start this SLP. Also please read this article: Melany Mack, Ron Uken, Jane Powers (2006) People Improving the Community’s Health: Community Health Workers as Agents of Change, Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved. Nashville: Feb 2006. Vol. 17, Iss. 1; p. 16 (10 pages) This article is also listed on the Background page and can be found in ProQuest. To begin to achieve the goal of improving health, a community must develop a strategy. That strategy, to be successful, must be supported by many individuals who are working together.

In much the same way you might map out a trip to a new place, you can use the MAP-IT technique to ‘map out’ the path toward the change you want to see in your community.

For the Session Long Project (SLP) of this course, you will follow one of the following families:

1) A non-English speaking immigrant family. The parents (35 year old father and a 31 year old mother) have a one-year old son. They (the parents) are obese, smokers, alcoholics and have only a high school education. Due to their weight, the mother has diabetes and high blood pressure, and the father has high blood pressure and kidney disease. The parents are a low income family with no insurance. You will guide the parents on how to achieve the minimum state health requirements for both the child and themselves, i.e. vaccination, good nutrition, a safe and healthy home environment etc.; or,

2) An English-speaking American family. The parents (42 year old father and a 40 year old mother) have two children, a 14-year old son and a 18 year old daughter. They (the parents) are obese, smokers, and have a history of heavy drug use in their late teen and early adult years. The father has only a high school education while the mother has a BA in English Literature. Due to their weight, the mother has diabetes and high blood pressure, and the father has high blood pressure and liver aliments. The son suffers from asthma while the daughter has had two previous abortions. She may be drug dependent. The parents are a moderate-low income family with minimal insurance. You will guide the parents on how to achieve the minimum state health requirements for both the child and themselves, i.e. vaccination, good nutrition, a safe and healthy home environment etc.

SLP Module Requirements:

You are to use MAP-IT: Mobilize, Assess, Plan, Implement, and Track to respond to this SLP.

Before you begin the SLP please review: Choosing the Right Approach for Health

Steps in MAP-IT are:

1) Mobilize individuals and organizations that care about the health of your community into a coalition.

2) Assess the areas of greatest need in your community, in this case, assisting new immigrants to access health care], as well as the resources and other strengths that you can tap into in order to address those areas.

3) Plan your approach: start with a vision of where you want to be as a community, then add strategies and action steps to help you achieve that vision: you can be a health educator, a health care provider, a nutritionist, a social worker etc..

4) Implement your plan using concrete action steps that can be monitored and will make a difference.

5) Track your progress over time.

KEY Criteria for grading this SLP: In addition to demonstrating that you are applying the MAP-IT steps, you must demonstrate personal development or competency in developing appropriate objectives for your targeted family based on needs and the ability to appraise the appropriateness of resources and materials required to meet their needs. You should also incorporate the results of the needs assessment of your targeted family into the planning process within MAP-IT. This is why it is so important to identify an actual community that your targeted family resides. You will find that almost all of the resources found or available in a community can be identified online.

Using this MAP-IT approach, a step-by-step, structured plan can be devised to tailor one’s community needs.

The first step in building a healthier community is to mobilize key individuals and organizations to form a community-wide coalition. Most communities already have health departments and other governmental agencies that are responsible for public health services. Many communities also have coalitions of key individuals and organizations that are organized to address specific issues, for example, block associations or neighborhood watch groups. These groups often represent diverse interests and resources for addressing issues that are vital to building and maintaining the health and stability of the entire community. A coalition will often, of course, work with the health department and other health organizations in the community. However, it can also help mobilize a wider range of other resources to address health issues.

Module 1 Session Long Project Expectations:

a) Select which family you for which you will use the MAP-IT Approach for the SLP.

b) Discuss how you will Mobilize individuals and organizations that care about the health of your community into a coalition. Identify the individuals and organizations which will form the basis of your coalition. Discuss how each member of your coalition can assist each member of your target family.

c) Briefly discuss the problems that underserved populations are confronted with when seeking care in the community